


bring all your hurt and bring all your pain

by where_you_go



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bobby Wilson Punches Homophobes, Drinking, First Meetings, Fist Fights, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pansexual Bobby Wilson, Pansexual Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Slurs, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Swearing, Trans Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:48:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29922627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/where_you_go/pseuds/where_you_go
Summary: Luke Patterson is pretty sure he has the worst soulword of all time.Bobby Wilson disagrees.
Relationships: Bobby | Trevor Wilson/Luke Patterson, Flynn/Carrie Wilson, Julie Molina/Reggie Peters, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 54





	bring all your hurt and bring all your pain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prettyghostboys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyghostboys/gifts).



> This was supposed to be a short, fun trope mashup for [prettyghostboys](https://prettyghostboys.tumblr.com/) for an ask game on tumblr and then a lovely anon came into my ask box to ask about it and in conclusion, I'm crying about Bobby Wilson all day every day now. 
> 
> Specific content warnings: homophobia, use of slurs (including the f-slur) by a non-main character, violence (fist fight), non-explicit descriptions of consensual sexual activity, drinking, swearing
> 
> If you want to skip the sexy times, it's the paragraph that starts "In Luke's defense..."

Luke cannot wait to meet his soulmate. Mostly so he can _punch them in their goddamn face_. 

He just really wants to know what kind of joke the universe is playing on him. Luke has not particularly enjoyed being the boy (yes, mom, _boy_ , this isn’t up for debate) with the word MOTHERFUCKER scrawled in huge writing down his entire left arm since the second grade. What kind of person is his soulmate that _that’s_ the first word they are going to say to him? Is this someone he’s even going to want to have as a soulmate?

(Though it had been hilarious when six-year-old Reggie had sounded out the word on Luke’s arm in front of the entire class and their teacher had almost stroked out in front of them.)

Anyway, Luke has decided to lean into it. He refuses to wear shirts with sleeves, preferring cut offs that show off both his soul word and the work he’s put into his muscles. He learns the guitar, pierces his ears, and gets a couple of tattoos on the other arm. Luke becomes the perfect image of a rockstar bad boy. 

Which might be why he ended up in this situation. But, look, no one gets to talk shit about his boys, especially not homophobic crap when Alex is already dealing with so much of that at home. The biggest problem is, Luke has these arm muscles and this bad boy exterior and he talks a big game, but he doesn’t actually know the first thing about fighting. So Luke finds himself cornered and hoping this ginormous dude maybe doesn’t aim for his face so that he can still look good for their next show, because he’s not sure he can rock a black eye on stage.

The dude’s fist comes flying and Luke’s bracing for impact when there’s suddenly a body in between Luke and the homophobe, taking the hit across his chin and barely flinching. The new guy does something insane with his leg, sweeping the homophobe’s feet out from under him and dropping him hard on the ground. Luke is definitely turned on, watching this guy jump to his defense and take out this dude that’s almost twice his size. 

And then, this guy turns around, makes eye contact with Luke, wipes at the trickle of blood that’s running from the cut on his lip and says quietly but with feeling, “ _Motherfucker_.”

And Luke, shocked and horny and not thinking, yells back, “You asshole!”

So that’s the story of how Luke and Bobby have the most ridiculous soulmate tattoos of all time.

—

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Alex starts but is immediately interrupted by Reggie snickering and asking, “Is that even possible for you, Lex?”

“Fuck off, you’re just as queer as I am,” Alex aims a halfhearted kick at the back of Reggie’s knee which he gracefully dodges, bouncing over to the couch where Julie is curled up with her song notebook, studiously ignoring her bandmates.

“Juuuuuulieeee,” Reggie whines, “Alex is being mean to me.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” she says without looking up. She does lift her arm up so that Reggie can wiggle his way onto the couch behind her and wrap her up in his arms though. Sometimes watching them cuddle is so cute it’s almost sickening, Luke thinks. Reggie and Julie are the stuff of soulmate legend, each of them getting their words and then meeting the very next day on the elementary school playground. They’ve been inseparable ever since — first kiss, true love, the whole shebang. The only reason that Reggie isn’t officially a Molina yet is because they are waiting until after Julie graduates from college next spring for the wedding, but it’s basically been a done deal for years. Hell, he’s been living in their house since they were teenagers, ever since Ray had figured out just how awful Reggie’s parents actually were and essentially kidnapped him. 

Luke rubs his thumb over the edge of his soulword and grimaces. Most people don’t have such neat and tidy soulmate meetings. His is certainly turning out to be a huge fucking mess.

“As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted,” Alex glares at Reggie, “You got into a fight with a guy three times your size at the bar last night but your soulmate swooped in to save your ass. You guys said your truly terrible soulwords and then you decide hey, let’s fuck in the bathroom of this disgusting bar, that sounds like another great plan since you’ve already had so many of those—”

In Luke’s defense, fucking in the bathroom _had_ been a great idea. His soulmate didn’t just have big dick energy, he had the real deal to back it up and Luke had enjoyed having it down his throat. And he hadn’t even flinched when he’d undone Luke’s jeans to find his prosthetic, just dropped to his knees, returning the favor and giving Luke the most mind-blowing orgasm of his life.

Yeah, that part had been a _great_ idea, probably the best idea he’d ever had since “hey let’s start a band” had turned into Julie and the Phantoms becoming a trending sensation. 

The part after that, though, had not exactly been his best moment. 

“—and then. Then. You, in your brilliance, decided to _run away from him_?”

Luke scowls and hunches further down into his hoodie. He’s not saying that he’s trying to hide behind his guitar like a shield, but he’s also not _not_ saying that either.

“…maybe.”

“You’re such a dumbass. Did you even get his name or did you just call him ‘motherfucker’ the entire time he was choking on your dick, hm?”

“Hey! No need to be a bitter asshole just because you’re the only one in the band who hasn’t met your soulmate yet.” Luke tosses a guitar pick at Alex’s head but they both watch as it flutters harmlessly to the ground before it gets anywhere near where Alex is sitting backwards on the spinny chair.

“Boys, play nice,” Julie says threateningly. 

“Sorry, Julie,” Alex and Luke say in sheepish chorus.

Instead of getting up to get his pick, Luke just goes back to picking out the opening chords of Basket Case with his fingers. He’s already got callouses all over his hands and his soulmate hadn’t seemed to mind them last night.

“For your information, though, his name is Bobby. Bobby Wilson.”

The scratch of Julie’s pen stills and she looks up at him with a wide-eyed gaze. “Bobby Wilson, as in Carrie’s cousin Bobby Wilson?”

“Uhhhh maybe? We didn’t really talk about our families. Or, you know, much of anything at all. Our mouths were kind of, uh, busy. With other things.”  


Julie pulls a face at him. “Gross.” But she still pulls her phone out and starts swiping through Instagram until she finds what she’s looking for. “Aha, see — Carrie posted a photo of them this week. The caption says that her cousin Bobby just moved to LA from Seattle. He’s an artist.”

She holds her phone up and yep. There’s Luke’s soulmate, staring back at him with those same gorgeous dark eyes that Luke hasn’t been able to get out of his head since yesterday. He could drown in them, if he let himself. He can already feel the lyrics for about a thousand new songs bubbling up in his brain, consuming all of his thoughts and making his fingers itch for a pencil and paper. Julie’s going to go crazy with the number of love songs he is planning on writing in the next few months. 

If he’s being honest with himself, that’s why he’d run away last night. Because his soulmate had been too perfect, too much of everything that Luke had always wanted.

And, well, he’d been scared. He’s still scared. He always knew the soulmate connection was intense — Reggie had tried to describe it to him the last time they were drunk and philosophizing, but he kept going off on tangents about Julie’s beauty — but Luke hadn’t realized it would feel like _that_. 

The greatest loves of Luke’s life thus far are music, his guitar, and his band, in that order. He doesn’t know what to do with this stranger that makes him want to ditch rehearsal and spend hours writing songs about his eyes. Touching Bobby had felt like the first time he’d held a guitar in his hands, like something sacred and divine, for all that it had been happening in a filthy public restroom. After the frantic rush of their fucking had calmed and the sweat on his back had been cooling and sticky where he had been pressed up against the stall door, Bobby had run his fingers so lightly over Luke’s soulword. He’d traced the letters so damn tenderly, his eyes full of awe and wonder. Nobody else had ever looked at Luke’s soulword like that. Luke hadn’t known how to handle all those emotions, so he’d ran away as soon as the feeling had come back into his legs.

And now he feels like a jerk.

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“Oooh, Carrie’s gonna kill you,” Alex says, whistling lowly. “It was nice knowing you, man.”

Reggie laughs and Julie shushes him with her hand, but Luke can see the laughter in her eyes and he scowls at them too.

“Luke, this is a good thing, right? Now we know how to get ahold of him so you can apologize and then you guys can do more of whatever you were doing in that bathroom last night that I don’t need to know any more about, thank you.”

Luke stuffs the strings of his hoodie in his mouth and chews on them anxiously. Intellectually, he knows they’re right, but his gut is still churning with unease.

“What if he hates me now?” he asks quietly. 

“Well, if you never talk to him again, he’s definitely going to hate you, so,” Reggie shrugs and then winces when Julie punches him in the arm. “Hey! What was that for?”

“We are being supportive, stop being a jerk,” Julie hisses.

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way!” Reggie holds his hands up defensively. “I just meant that you need to talk with him, man, and like be honest about why you ran away or nothing will get better.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Reggie’s right,” Alex chimes in, “The universe decided that you two are meant to be, so he’ll understand. If he doesn’t, then he’s a shitty soulmate and you shouldn’t want him anyway.”

Luke nods, “Okay, I guess you guys are right. But how am I supposed to get in touch with him? Carrie added barbed wire the last time we snuck over her fence, we can’t just go over there.”

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Julie says, snatching her phone back and starting to type furiously. “We have a show on Friday, so I’m gonna text Flynn and tell her to get backstage passes for Carrie and Bobby. Then, after the show, they can come backstage and you and Bobby can have a conversation. With words, not just with sex.”

It’s a good plan. Luke always feels amazing after performing, he should be able to ride that endorphin rush into an honest conversation. It’ll give him some courage and Bobby can see him kill it on stage first, so hopefully that will make him interested in hearing what he has to say.

“Great, Flynn’s on that. And that gives us three days to write whatever sappy soulmate song you’ve in your head right now.”

“How did you—”

Julie gives him a look. 

“Don’t play me, Patterson. Get over here and start writing.”

And, well, what can he really say to that. Three days to write the most amazing, bomb-ass song of all time to sing to his soulmate who probably hates him? 

Luke Patterson has never backed down from a challenge before and he’s not about to start now.

—

Bobby Wilson has never really put much stock into the whole “soulmate” thing. After all, his parents had been soulmates and they still ended up getting a divorce when he was five. His mom had packed him up and moved to Seattle to live with her parents, and they always avoided talking about his dad.

Except once, when Bobby was seven years old and he’d woken up with the skin of his collarbone itching and burning and he ran to his mother’s room in tears. His mother had gently brushed her fingers over the reddened skin and smiled at the faint dark marks that were just beginning to appear.

“Baby, your soulwords are being written, this is a good thing.” He remembered specifically how she had smiled when she said that to him — softly, almost wistfully, like she was happy but also just a little bit sad too.

“My soulwords?”

“Yes, come here, look,” she’d said, pulling the hem of her pants up to show him the line of dark text that curled delicately around her ankle. 

Bobby had traced his finger over her words, sounding them out loud, “Here, you can have the last one.” His face had scrunched up in confusion. “What does that mean, mama?”

She had smoothed his hair back. “These were the first words your father ever said to me. We were at the market and there was only one grouper left. We both reached for it at the same time, but he was a gentleman and let me have it.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I said, ‘Come over for dinner and you can have some too.’” She had smiled, looking at the dark words on her skin. “His words are on his shoulder, and he took off his shirt right there in the store to show me. We almost got kicked out before I could buy the fish.”

Bobby had laughed at the mental image of his father, who he vaguely remembered as a quiet, stoic man who had loved his son but hadn’t been good at showing it, undressing in public. 

“Mama, does that mean that daddy is your soulmate?”

“Yes, baby, your father and I are soulmates,” she had said. “And someday you’ll have a soulmate too. When your words finish coming in, you’ll know the first words they’ll say to you. And when you hear those words, your heart will know you’ve found them. Trust me.”

Bobby had thought hard about his mother’s words. He was going to have a soulmate, someone the universe had picked out just for him. Bobby never got picked for anything special — he didn’t have any close friends at school and no one ever wanted him on their team for PE. He mostly sat alone at recess and read his books. But if the universe thought there was someone out there _just for him_ , maybe he really was special after all.

But then he wondered why, if daddy was his mama’s soulmate, did he live so far away? Why didn’t he ever come visit? He wondered but he didn’t ask, because he didn’t want to make his mother look sad again.

(It took him a few years, but he figured it out eventually. Turns out, even being a fated connection of souls didn’t stop some relationships from falling apart.

What was the point? If it didn’t matter, what was _the whole goddamn point_?

Bobby spent many years being very angry at the universe. This was just one of the reasons.)

Nearly twenty years later and Bobby has decided that if his soulmate happens to appear, well good for them, but anyone who calls their soulmate “you asshole” right off the bat is probably _also_ an asshole and he’s not terribly interested in meeting them.

Or at least, that’s what he tells the people he flirts with at the bar when they ask about the jagged edge of the letter ‘Y’ that peeks out behind the collar of his shirt. 

(Maybe, _maybe_ , there’s a tiny, extremely minuscule part of Bobby that wants to believe in the instant connection of two souls, but he’s seen too much. Seems like fake Disney bullshit to him.)

He just wants to have a fun night out and relax tonight. Moving all his stuff has been a pain in the ass, especially all his welding equipment, but he was lucky that his friend Willie had been able to hook him up with some studio space. And his new apartment is nice, but he’s on the third floor and there’s no elevator, so he’s carting boxes up and down the stairs all weekend. All he wants right now is a cold beer and for this cute girl to keep smiling at him and —

“Who wants to hear a bunch of faggots play pussy music anyway? Bet we know what you really use those drumsticks for anyway.”

— _goddammit_. 

If there’s one thing that’s true about Bobby Wilson, it’s that he’s never known how to back down from a fight, even if it really isn’t his fight. His mother would worry over the bruises and bloody noses he’d brought home from school, but he couldn’t not intervene when someone was getting bullied. It wasn’t right.

And this dude is about to get his ass kicked.

The douchebag spouting all the homophobic crap is a big guy, but only in the way that just by looking at him, Bobby can tell that he goes to the gym and does all the upper body weights and skips leg day every time. His neck muscles bulge unattractively, especially considering the confederate flag tattoo that’s stretched across the right side. A hit from him will hurt, but he doesn’t know how to fight, not like Bobby does. 

The guy he’s got backed into a corner, on the other hand, looks like he’s putting up a tough front, but his stance is all wrong. He clearly has no idea what to do in a fight and he’s gonna go down hard. Bobby can’t let a pretty face like that get fucked up by some racist, homophobic piece of garbage. 

Just as the sentient piece of garbage winds his arm back and lets his fist fly, Bobby manages to slip in between the homophobe and his intended target. His fist connects with Bobby’s chin, but he’d been aiming for a target about four inches lower and, just as Bobby had thought, his form was pretty bad to begin with. He can feel his lip split and he’ll have a nasty bruise, but it’s nowhere near enough to seriously hurt him.

The homophobe is clearly startled by his appearance and Bobby uses that to his advantage. He swiftly hooks his foot around his ankle and sweeps the leg out from underneath him. His top-heavy opponent becomes unbalanced and Bobby grabs his shiny bowling ball head and spikes it downward, so that he slams into the floor of the bar face first.

He doesn’t get back up. 

Not too bad for a faggot, Bobby thinks spitefully. 

He turns his head to look at the guy behind him and now that he’s not so focused on stopping a fight, Bobby realizes that he’s not just _pretty_ , he’s _gorgeous_. He looks like he walked straight out of teenage Bobby’s wet dreams, with his cut off band tee and arms full of sleeve tats. But really, it’s his eyes that catch Bobby’s gaze, wide and stunned and so blue it could put the ocean to shame.

His lip stings and he can feel a drop of blood trickle down his chin. He catches it with his thumb and damn, that’s going to twinge in the morning.

“ _Motherfucker_ ,” he swears quietly.

The gorgeous guy’s face morphs into a look of complete astonishment. His mouth drops open and his finger comes up to point accusingly at Bobby.

“You _asshole!_ ”

—

Turns out, Bobby was right. His soulmate _is_ an asshole.

Being right doesn’t exactly make it hurt any less though, knowing that his soulmate (Luke, his soulmate’s name is _Luke_ ) was only interested in a quick fuck in a bar bathroom. 

He can’t believe he ever thought he’d be special enough for anything more than that.

By the time Carrie finds him hiding in his new studio space, he’s well into a fifth of bourbon and scraping the bottom of his pint of Ben and Jerry’s. He should’ve gotten more than one, but he didn’t think he’d need it so soon.

“You look pathetic,” Carrie sneers. 

“Fuck off,” he snaps back.

“Ooh, sick burn, Robert.” She shoves at his shoulder until he scoots over enough on the ratty loveseat that she can wedge herself between him and the arm. She steals his ice cream and then scoffs when she sees that it’s basically empty. “Are you going to tell me why you’re wallowing? Your mom is worried about you. You haven’t called her in a few days.”

From any other person, that would be a dig about being a mama’s boy, but Carrie understands in a way that others don’t. She loves his mom just as much as he does.

“Shit, I’ll call her in the morning.” Bobby rubs at his eyes. “I should tell her I met my soulmate and all, I guess.”

Carrie makes a vaguely interested noise. From her, it’s as good as begging for details.

Except he doesn’t know what to say. He’s not like her — he’s not good with words, with writing poetry and lyrics and all that. He’s always been better with his hands. That’s why he learned to fight and eventually to sculpt. Building something with his own two hands, whether small and delicate or a huge metal monstrosity, has always felt like putting his whole heart on display. 

Last night, his hands had held his soulmate and it had felt exactly the same to him as his art. He had trailed his fingers over the soulword that he’d originally mistaken for a sleeve tattoo and even though it was vulgar, it still felt precious, something just for them. Something _special_. He wanted to spend the rest of his life mapping out every curve of his soulmate’s body, until every crevice is as familiar to his fingers as one of his own sculptures. 

How can he put into words the way that moment had felt? Delicate, fragile, hopeful — but ultimately crushed under the weight of disappointment, as the bathroom door swung closed behind his rapidly retreating soulmate. 

Bobby didn’t realize he could disappoint someone he’d only known for an hour, but hey, looks like he is good at something after all.

Fuck soulmates, man. Fuck the whole fucking concept.

“My soulmate’s an asshole who hates me, Care-bear,” he says quietly, using the nickname he hasn’t called her since they were children. 

“Oh Bobbers,” she sighs, slinging an arm around his neck and forcing his head on to her shoulder. “Did they say that they hated you?”

He grunts. “No, but he abandoned me in the bathroom of a bar before I could even get my pants back on all the way. Felt like a pretty clear message to me.”

“Have you tried reaching out to see what he has to say for himself? Maybe there was a misunderstanding. Sometimes you’re an idiot, you know.” Carrie says _idiot_ the way that most people say _I love you._ “And, hey, Flynn hated me too when we first said our soulwords, so it’s not like you’d be the first one.”

“That good old Wilson family luck, huh,” Bobby snorts. 

“I’ll drink to that,” Carrie says, reaching for the bourbon. 

They sit in companionable silence, taking turns with the bottle and leaning on each other for support. It feels like a grown-up version of the way they used to play as children — side-by-side, in total silence. Their parents had worried, but they hadn’t needed words to understand each other.

Until Carrie’s phone chimes with Flynn’s special ringtone and Bobby makes a face as he is once again reminded of the existence of soulmates. 

Carrie swipes her phone open and Bobby lets his eyes drift shut, listening to the rhythmic tap of Carrie’s nails on the screen as she rapidly taps out her responses.

“Hey, what did you say your soulmate’s name, was again?”

“I didn’t say.” Bobby cracks an eye open and peers at Carrie’s face, which is stony and fixed on her screen. He can’t see it from this angle. “It’s Luke Patterson. Why do you want to know?”

“No reason.” She types at the screen some more and he shrugs. If she doesn’t want to tell him, he’s not going to be able to get it out of her. She’s like a vault of secrets. Something like that. He already said he isn’t good at metaphors. 

She shoves her phone back in her purse and stands abruptly, grabbing him by the hands and forcing him to standing as well, which. Damn. He’s definitely had too much bourbon, by the way the room is spinning right now.

“Alright, listen up. You get three days to mope and be sad and do whatever, but by Friday you better have your shit together. Flynn got us backstage passes to a great band and you are coming with me, you don’t have a choice. You need to get out of this place and officially meet Flynn anyway.”

Bobby knows better than to try an argue with Carrie when she’s fixated on something, so he guesses he’s going to some stupid concert on Friday. At least it will take his mind off this whole soulmate business. And hey, they’re going to have backstage passes, so maybe the guitar player will be hot or something. At least he’ll have some nice eye candy.

—

Ten seconds after meeting them, Bobby’s like ninety percent sure that Flynn is the coolest person he’ll ever know. Maybe it’s the bright yellow ruffle dress or the way they walk so confidently in heels that are taller than most toddlers, or maybe it’s the way they shove a lanyard around Bobby’s head and say, “This will get us backstage after the show. If you lose it, I will laugh as security throws your ass to the pavement, so don’t lose it,” before they even say hello. 

(Or maybe it’s the way that Carrie Ice Queen Wilson practically melts when Flynn appears in front of them. He hopes that Flynn understands that Bobby hasn’t seen his cousin show this much emotion since she was a literal baby. 

By the way that Flynn smiles when Carrie takes their hand, he thinks they do.)

After cutting the line at the door and claiming a VIP table with an excellent view of the stage, Bobby _knows_ that Flynn is the coolest person he’ll ever meet. Flynn jumps up to get a round of drinks and Bobby turns to Carrie.

“What if we just—” 

“Absolutely not. Flynn is _my_ soulmate and if you try to take them from me, I will extract your intestines through your belly button with an unsharpened number two pencil.”

“You’re violent tonight.” 

“Are you surprised?”

He shrugs. Not really, to be honest. 

“Anyway,” Carrie says lightly, “I think you’ll be too busy with your own soulmate to try and steal mine.”

Bobby stares at her. “Carrie, what the fuck did you do?”

“Oh good, it’s starting!” Carrie smirks and purposefully turns away from him to watch the stage at the same moment that Flynn slides back into the booth on the other side of him. He’s feeling a little trapped and a lot paranoid about what the two of them are planning.

Then the stage lights come up and he immediately takes back every good thing he’s said about Flynn or Carrie ever because they absolutely planned this and he’s going to _kill them._

Because right there, standing directly beneath a spotlight, in Bobby’s direct line of sight, is _Luke fucking Patterson_ , holding a blue guitar and looking almost as gorgeous as the last time Bobby saw him. 

Well, he was right, the guitarist _is_ hot. 

Goddammit. 

—

“I hate you,” Bobby tells Carrie.

“I’m okay with that,” she says, without releasing the death grip she has on his elbow.

“I hate your soulmate too.”

Flynn tosses a smirk over their shoulder. “Good.”

“And I hate this band. Their music is terrible.”

“Now that’s a lie,” Carrie snorts. “You were _entranced_ during the whole concert.”

“Couldn’t stop making those big sad eyes right at Luke,” Flynn says, laughing right at him.

Bobby sighs. Unfortunately, they’re not wrong. Julie and The Phantoms is a phenomenal band and they put on an amazing show. Their music lit up the crowd like electricity, and within seconds everyone had been on their feet, dancing and singing along. 

Everyone, except Bobby. 

The longer the show had gone on, the further he’d sunk into the booth. He’d considered trying to slip under the table and sneak out, but Flynn’s aforementioned heels could probably stab straight through his skull and he hadn't liked his odds. He’ll fistfight homophobic douchebags all day long, but he has no delusions about how long he’d last against his cousin or her equally terrifying soulmate.

The problem wasn’t that they weren’t good or that Bobby didn’t like them — the problem was that they were _so good_. More to the point, _Luke_ was amazing and Bobby couldn’t take his eyes off of him. 

It wasn’t fair that he was the most physically attractive person that Bobby had ever laid eyes on, he also had to play the guitar and sing with the voice of a rock god as well?

Why was the universe torturing Bobby like this?

The worst part — the absolute fucking _worst part_ though? Because he never took his eyes off of Luke, that meant he couldn’t miss the way that Luke looked at his bandmates as he sang with them. Especially the other lead singer — Julie, he presumed. Their chemistry was undeniable and every time they shared a mic, Bobby wanted to die. That would explain why Luke had been in such a hurry the other day, if he had a girlfriend waiting at home. 

Bobby couldn’t even blame him either; who would pick Bobby over a woman like that?

But then, there _had_ been that one song.

Almost at the end of the set, when Julie had paused to get some water, Luke had stepped up to the mic. He’d done the usual bits — asking the crowd how they were feeling, blah blah blah — and then he’d paused and looked around, like he was searching the crowd for something. Or someone.

Maybe it was wishful thinking, but it had seemed like his eyes had stopped on their table, on _Bobby_. He’d been frozen in place, breath caught in his chest like a vice. There was no way Luke was looking at him, but he _wanted_ — no. Stop dreaming. That’s how you get hurt.

“We have a new song we wanted to share with everyone tonight,” Luke had said, still staring intently at something that definitely wasn’t Bobby. “I hope you like it.”

The whole venue could have gone up in flames and Bobby wouldn’t have noticed a thing when Luke led into the song on his guitar, singing “ _You might kill me with desire, wind me tighter than a wire; it’s something that you do to me, I run away like mercury._ ”

The moment had felt unreal, like Luke and Bobby were the only two people in the whole world. The rest of the universe had ceased to exist and the only thing Bobby could hear was Luke’s voice singing, “ _I’m sorry, so sorry for what I’ve done_ ,” and the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears. Was this what everyone meant when they talked about connection between soulmates? He felt like he was drowning and flying all at the same time and his mind was dizzy from the intensity of it all. 

Traitorous hope had bloomed in his heart when Luke sang, “ _I’ve waited for this, I’m ready for it.”_

Could it be—?

Reality had crashed back into Bobby like a sledgehammer to the head when the song had ended and the crowd had screamed its approval. Luke’s attention had been diverted back to the rest of the crowd, back to _Julie_ and the rest of the band, taking their bows and wrapping up the show with another amazing anthem that Bobby had barely heard a word of.

And now Carrie is dragging him backstage, following Flynn’s lead to the green room, and Bobby thinks he might throw up. 

“Ok, look at me, Bobby,” Carrie says, abruptly coming to a halt and turning him around to face her. “I won’t force you to do this if you really don’t want to. But I think we both know that you do want to see him again, even if it’s just so you can get an apology and some closure. And honestly, some groveling would be good for that boy’s ego.”

“Really, Carrie? You’re going to talk about someone else’s ego?”

“Shut up, Flynn!”

Bobby snorts a laugh, because he agrees with Flynn but he values his life enough not to say it out loud. But that doesn’t make Carrie _wrong_ , unfortunately. He wants to see Luke again, he wants that so much, but he doesn’t know what to say.

But it’s not like standing in this hallway is going to magically make Bobby brilliant with the English language, though, so he might as well get this over with. He can always go back to his studio and throw some metal around later, after his soulmate finishes breaking his heart. 

Again.

“Okay, you’re right, I do want to see him,” he sighs and Carrie’s smirk is smug as hell as she suddenly pushes him through a doorway he hadn’t noticed before. 

He spins around to stop himself from falling and he still almost falls over anyway. Because there is his soulmate, getting a piggyback ride from the band's drummer, laughing and smiling and fucking _glowing_ with joy and Bobby’s tattered heart aches with longing at the sight. 

Oh this is going to hurt so much more than taking a punch to the face, isn’t it.

—

“Bro, we killed it out there!” Luke is bouncing, practically soaring as the band walks back into the dressing room, full of energy after the amazing set they just played. Luke loves being on stage, nothing can top the feeling of a room full of people coming alive because of their music.

And Bobby had been there. He’d seen him, _finally_ , after spending the whole show searching the crowd for his face, the face he could never forget for the rest of his life. He’d gotten to sing his new song, the song he’d written just for him all while staring straight into those dark eyes.

Luke shivers at the memory. It had been…intense, to say the least. 

“You mean _we_ killed it,” Julie teases, gesturing at herself and Reggie, “ _You_ were too busy throwing heart eyes at _Bobby_.”

Reggie makes kissy faces at him, but Alex makes an affronted sound. “And what am I, chopped liver? I basically carry this whole band, you know. You’d be lost without my amazing drumming skills.”

Luke cackles with laughter, because he’s too hyped for the teasing to hit home, especially not when Julie is right (realistically, she’s always right), and instead launches himself at Alex’s back, trusting that he’ll be caught. Luke knows that Alex pretends to be a grumpy gills but he secretly loves when Luke and Reggie get touchy-feely and cling to him to demand snuggles and piggyback rides. Or at the very least, he’s never dropped them.

Today is no exception, and despite some grumbling, Alex hitches Luke up higher on his back to hold him more securely. Luke laughs and spreads his arms out as they spin around, high on their amazing performance and their kick ass music and how much love he has for his band, his _family,_ for the whole freakin’ world. 

Then Bobby Wilson stumbles through the door and Luke’s world rapidly narrows down to a single other soul. 

Alex stops spinning at the sudden appearance of a new person, allowing Luke to slide down his back and land heavily on his feet. He vaguely notices Julie and Reggie poking at each other somewhere behind him, and Carrie and Flynn are standing in the doorway looking smug, but to be honest, almost none of that registers for Luke. 

He only has eyes for Bobby.

“Hi,” Luke says, waving awkwardly. 

Bobby makes a noise, something strangled and high-pitched, but doesn’t say anything. He just stares at Luke with huge wide eyes, his hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his jeans, causing him to hunch over slightly, like he’s trying to make himself smaller, less visible. As if Luke could possibly look away from him.

“Okay, then, we’re just gonna…leave you guys to it,” Alex says awkwardly. Distantly, Luke registers his friends shuffling out of the room, shoving Carrie and Flynn out and letting the door slam shut behind them. 

Luke has so many words inside of him, hundreds of lines of poetry, of metaphors and flowery prose, so many things he wants to say but they all get stuck in his throat when he tries to open his mouth. 

Why do his words keep failing him around his soulmate?

Before he can figure that out, Bobby beats him to the punch, with the world’s most confusing question.

“So, how does your girlfriend feel about the whole soulmate thing?”

“What?” 

Bobby scuffs at the flooring with the tip of his heavy black boots. “Julie? Your girlfriend? I assume she knows about the whole—” he gestures at his collarbone, where Luke knows his words are written, even if he’s only seen a brief glimpse of them, “—soulmate thing.”

Luke makes a face. “ _Julie?_ Dude, Reggie is her soulmate, they’ve been together forever.”

“So you have a girlfriend _and_ a boyfriend?”

“ _What?_ No! Why do you keep asking me all these crazy questions?”

“I saw how you interacted with them during the show! And it’s not that crazy, plenty of soulmate pairs go looking for a third!”

“Not those two!” Luke almost feels offended on their behalf. “And anyway I have chemistry with everyone I sing with!”

“Chemistry,” Bobby scoffs.

“Yeah, chemistry,” he snaps back and then it’s like he can’t help himself, like he has something to prove. Luke crosses the space between them in several huge steps, putting himself right up in Bobby’s personal space. He grabs him by the back of his neck, forcing Bobby to look him in the eyes. He can read all the hurt and uncertainty and _want_ in his eyes and Luke prays that his eyes show nothing but hope and desire, because that’s all he’s been feeling since he first realized that Bobby was in the crowd of his show.

They are pressed together, chest to chest, breathing in the same shared air between them. It’s not like Luke had _forgotten_ what it had felt like to touch his soulmate’s bare skin and feel the ripple of electric current underneath his fingertips, but the intensity of the moment still almost knocks him over. Being this close to Bobby makes Luke feel like his entire soul has been lit on fire and he hopes that it feels like this forever. If this is what everyone means when they talk about the soulmate connection, then Luke understands why it makes people crazy.

“Tell me you felt it too,” Luke whispers, “I was singing to you. For you. You had to know.”

Bobby clenches his jaw and his eyes dart away briefly. “I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

Luke makes a wounded noise in the back of his throat and brings his other hand up to rest over Bobby’s collarbone. The words burn through the thick material of his bomber jacket. 

“You don’t have to hope, you know? I wrote that song for you. Actually, if you want to know the truth, I’ve written about three dozen songs in the last three days about you,” Luke says, blushing but forcing the words out because at this point he owes him the truth.

Bobby shakes his head, “You don’t even know me.”

“I could.” Luke tightens his fingers on the back of his neck. “I want to, if you’ll give me the chance.”

He watches Bobby’s face intently, desperate to catch every tiny motion and microexpression. His lips part and Luke can’t drag his eyes away from the glimpse of pink tongue that darts out to wet them. 

“Then why,” Bobby starts, stops, takes a deep breath, “You ran away from me.”

“I was scared,” Luke says and the honesty hurts, but in a good way, like lancing a boil and letting all the gross, infected, bad stuff drain out. Healing is a painful process, but worth it. Getting a new start with his soulmate would be worth anything, Luke thinks.

“Scared of me?” Bobby chokes out.

“Scared of my own feelings,” Luke corrects, gently. He softly rubs his fingers through the short hairs on the back of Bobby’s neck and he shivers under Luke’s touch. “I spent so much time hating my soulword and being angry with the universe, but then I met you and you were just — I mean, you’re amazing, you know? I’ve never wanted someone else so much, I guess, I just got scared of how big it all felt. So I ran away, like a coward. But I am so fucking sorry. I never should have done that to you.”

A light pink flush spreads slowly across Bobby’s face, over his nose and cheeks, extending down his neck and disappearing under the collar of his shirt. Luke wonders if anyone has ever told Bobby that he’s amazing before; he resolves to do it as often as he can.

“Are you still scared?”

Luke swallows hard, admits, “Yeah, of course. I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m terrified I’m going to fuck it all up again. But I want this more than I’m afraid of it, so I have to try, right?”

Bobby huffs and brings his hands up to rest on Luke’s bare arms. His hands feel huge and warm and they send sparks racing up under Luke’s skin, especially where his covers the “OTH” in his soulword. “I don’t know any soulmate pair that’s gotten a happy ending. Everything good seems to fall apart around me. I’m like poison, or cursed, or something.”

“What the hell, who told you that shit,” Luke frowns. “You fuckin’ saved me, man. That guy was gonna beat my ass and you saved me. People who are poisonous don’t act like that.” He punctuated his sentence with a poke. Bobby rolls his eyes but Luke can see the edges of his lips curling up into a faint smile and the sight steals all the air out his chest.

“Listen, I don’t know anything about curses and I can’t promise you a happy ending,” Luke says, “but I can promise that I’ll never run away again. Do you think that’s good enough for a start? We can figure out the rest as we go. Together.”

Instead of answering him with words, Bobby ducks his head down and kisses him. It’s nothing like the frantic, sloppy kisses they traded the other night. This kiss is a slow, gentle exploration of each other, no less passionate for its softness. It makes Luke’s head spin, dizzy with desire for this man in front of him. His fingers clench in the fabric of Bobby’s shirt, pressing down against his soulwords and Bobby shudders against him. He grabs at Luke’s arms, pulling him impossibly closer, like if they get close enough they never have to let go.

He pulls back, leans his forehead against Bobby’s and listens to the way their breaths sync up. He once read that soulmates have heartbeats that are in tune with one another, beating together as one. He’d written it off as poetic nonsense, but here, in this moment, he’d believe it.

He’d believe anything right now, if Bobby was the one saying it.

“So, is that a yes?” Luke asks, cheekily.

Bobby hums and tilts his head, like he’s considering it. “I guess that depends on if these songs of yours are any good. I have pretty high standards, you know.”

Luke tosses his head back and crows with laughter. His soulmate is an _asshole_ and Luke _loves_ it. Maybe the universe was on to something with their matching colorful soulwords. 

“Ok, well in that case, you’re just going to have to come back to my place tonight and listen to a few of them. Fair warning though, you’re not going to be able to resist me when I’m playing my guitar. It’s just facts,” Luke shrugs and goes to grab his jacket and keys.

“Oh really? Sounds like a challenge to me.” Bobby is smirking and damn, it should be illegal to be that attractive. Luke wants to kiss it off his face, but he can’t cave before their night has even begun.

“Maybe it is, what are you gonna do about it?”

Bobby suddenly moves, crowding Luke up against the door of the green room and all the earlier softness has vanished in favor of pure heat pulsing through every inch of his body. Bobby dips his head down, his lips brushing against Luke’s ear as he whispers, “I don’t lose, Patterson.”

“Neither do I.” Luke juts his chin out and watches Bobby’s eyes darken, drop to his mouth.

There’s a half second where Luke thinks they both might give in to the moment, have a replay of their bar bathroom adventure and Luke can’t even say he’d mind. Julie would probably kill him, but it would totally worth it. But then Bobby backs up and gestures at the door, looking far too composed, in Luke’s opinion. 

“Alright, lead the way then. I expect to be amazed.”

Luke can’t help the grin that stretches across his face, winks and says, “Let’s go then, you asshole,” as he throws open the door and bounces down the hallway, leaving his soulmate to hurry to catch up to him.

He laughs when he hears Bobby mutter under his breath, just loud enough to be heard, “ _Motherfucker.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Title was inspired by [this lovely moodboard](https://where-you-go.tumblr.com/post/644665175932272640/some-more-lukebobby-content-because-ive-lost). The song that Luke sings is Sorry by Nothing But Thieves. 
> 
> Come say hi or drop a prompt [on tumblr](where-you-go.tumblr.com)!


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